Monetization Methods

This
website
also earns revenue with
Advertising Sales.
It is recommended to request a video walk through from the seller to verify all revenue claims.

Last 12 Months Claimed Revenue and Profit

Revenue

Costs

Profit

Apr 16

$1,654

$324

$1,330

May 16

$667

$183

$484

Jun 16

$333

$159

$174

Jul 16

$182

$148

$34

Aug 16

$303

$370

-$67

Sep 16

$939

$206

$733

Oct 16

$242

$160

$82

Nov 16

$91

$113

-$22

Dec 16

$173

$113

$60

Jan 17

$410

$171

$239

Feb 17

$310

$200

$110

Mar 17

$802

$227

$575

Seller's Notes

Craftbevergejobs.com launched in April 2014. It is built on WordPress and uses the WP Job Board Plugin ($39/year renewal). In all transparency, this has been a project site and I have not dedicated the time or resources needed to turn this into a viable business, which I believe it can be for the right buyer.

When I launched this site, the term “craft beverage” was not a common term in the beverage industry or a valuable keyword. Things are different now, and “craft beverage” is a word used throughout the industry to represent wine, craft beer, craft spirits, craft cider, craft coffee, and craft soda. There is tremendous opportunity for the right buyer better at SEO than myself to improve organic search rankings w/ regard to these verticals and to the job seeking market in general.

Most of the site’s traffic comes from organic search to a variety of the unique job seeking resources created, which include comprehensive guides to careers in craft beer, wine, and coffee - in addition to resources on how to write cover letters, interviewing tips, and general job seeking advice. Our blog(over 240 unique posts) is full of valuable content and resources for the job seeker, but it has been neglected with few posts over the last year.

Subscribers: There are now over 5300 subscribers via various lead magnets offered around the site and via a free course for job seekers. The site is averaging around 10 new subscribers per day, which is down from 30 per day when I had an active welcome mat promoting the free course. I turned that off because the cost of maintaining the list kept rising due to # of subscribers increasing. My goal was always to provide career resources to job seekers for free, so I never had a monetization strategy for the growing # of subscribers on the site. Someone with a vision for this could really capitalize on a growing and active email list.

Since launching CBJ, I have done zero outreach to the industry to attract employer job listings except for 2 industry trade shows in 2014. Everything has come organically via search, word of mouth, social, etc. The only monetization strategy was via paid job listings ($95 or $125 each and an annual option). This changed in December 2016 when I added in Indeed job listings and added Adsense to the site in Feb 2017. Zip Recruiter is interested in working together, but that requires a different technical integration, which I haven’t looked into.

Indeed job backfilling was just added in December 2016 and has been earning around $50/mo since (to date in March: $35.82). The keyword “craft beer” is being used to pull jobs over from Indeed.

Adsense was just added on February 7th of 2017 and earned $50.21 that month with $30.30 to-date this march.

There are 285 employer accounts on the platform currently.

Two of the largest craft beer employers (Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and Harpoon Brewery) are annual subscribers, which represent the spikes in revenue that you see in the financial chart. Advertised price for an annual subscription is $1195. With even just a little bit of outreach, I envision this being a compelling revenue channel for the new owner. Both of these annual members found us on their own.

Employers that have found us and list with us tend to return and love our service - as the featured listing (now the only listing at $130) includes paid Facebook ads, which I have run to bring in applicants. I have been allocating apx $30 per paid listing to run a targeted Facebook ad campaign for each featured job. Depending on the location and target demographic, this has resulted in a great response for the employers.

We post all paid listings to our social accounts, but Twitter has been the main social channel. For every paid listing, we schedule and publish over 40 tweets over a 30 day period - in addition to sharing content from the blog. Up until September 2016 I was actively working to grow our Twitter followers by 1000 targeted and related users per month. That strategy worked well and only required a few hours per month, but I have neglected this strategy due to a lack of time. I’d be happy to show a new owner how I do this in addition to going over how I use Facebook Ads to target applicants.

Cost & Time to Maintain:

WPEngine: $29/mo (with some fluctuation based on traffic) (can take account over)

Other considerations: I subscribe to Hootsuite Pro, which I would recommend to continue the scheduled tweets. Cost varies. Tweepi is the tool I have used to grow Twitter (was $15/mo). I use LeadPages to capture opt ins from landing pages and leadboxes. I am grandfathered in at the Pro account at $197/yr ($379/yr savings). Buyer can assume that account if they'd like to.

Total Job Board Revenue (less Stripe & PayPal fees):

2014: $749.79

2015: $5286.70

2016: $5357.11

2017 to date: $848.44 (already a 10% increase over YTD 2016)

Time: When a paid job comes in, it takes me approximately 1 hour to write the tweets, create the ad copy and image, and schedule everything. This could easily be assigned to a contractor/outsourced.

I am selling CBJ because I no longer have the time to dedicate to growing it. From my point of view, the site needs a new owner who can work to improve SEO, who will do outreach to grow paid employer listings, and who has a path to monetize the email subscriber database.

Not included in the sale of craftbeveragejobs.com is the book for job seekers I wrote called “Apply Yourself”. If the new owner is interested in licensing rights to this book, we can discuss that separately. The revenue received from book sales is not included in the reports for this site.

SELLER INTERVIEW

How is your business monetized?

Advertising

Transactional

Please describe your business model

Craft Beverage Jobs is a niche job board serving the beer, wine, spirits, cider, and coffee industry. We offer free resources for job seekers and we charge employers for each 60 day listing on our site. We also import Indeed "craft beer" listings and run Google Adsense on our site.

Are you the original owner of the business?

Yes

Which platform does the website use?

WordPress

Where is the site hosted and will this need to change after purchase?

Registrar is Dreamhost (that will need to be moved); host is WPEngine. New owner can assume this account.

Why are you selling the business?

Craft Beverage Jobs was my first experiment in online business. While I'm incredibly proud of the site I've built, I am ready to move on.

Can the website’s revenue be accurately tracked back to the website?

Yes, revenue can be accurately tracked back to the business.

Is the website’s revenue kept separate from other business and personal accounts?

Yes, completely separate.

If necessary, do you have tax returns available to support your revenue claims?

Yes, currently 5388 subscribers held Convertkit. Receiving about 10 new subscribers per day on average.

What are the primary traffic sources of the site?

Organic - Our blog w/ over 200 posts draws a lot of organic site traffic.Social - The large social following discussed above.

Do you use, or have you experimented with, social media marketing?

Yes, I currently use social media marketing.

Have you done any Search Engine Optimization?

Yes, I have done minimal SEO. Back in 2014/2015 I hired someone to help improve SEO. Not sure it helped much. I have the Yoast plugin installed and active.

Do you or have you ever purchased traffic?

Yes, I currently purchase traffic - targeted ads for posted jobs.

Please provide a brief description of the activities surrounding the question above

When a employer pays for a featured listing, I allocate a portion of that revenue to Facebook ads to target the employer's target demographic in order to drive interest and applications for that role.

Has the site ever received any search engine penalties (manual or algorithmic)?

No, to my knowledge my site has never received any search engine penalties.

Do you use, or have you experimented with direct / display advertising?

No, I have not.

Have you experimented with any other sales / marketing initiatives?

No

Do you have employees or contracts with freelancers?

No

How is the content of your website produced?

Blog: I write the content

Job board content: Employer registers on the site and posts their job opening (either paid or free)

Job Board: Integration with Indeed API

Task 1 - Paid Job PostedDescription - Things that need to happen when an employer pays for a jobWho - OwnerHours per week - <2How may people perform this task? - 1

Does the owner need specific skillsets in order to successfully operate the site?

WordPress may be helpful, but not necessary. Understanding social and paid traffic may be helpful, but not necessary. It's not hard; all can be outsourced if need be.

Do you and/or any employees or freelancers provide customer support?

No

What makes your website better than its competition?

I've worked hard to build community and to be unique in our social strategy and the way we operate. I've been to a few trade shows and events on behalf of CBJ and everyone thinks we are a big company because we have gotten our message out and reached many people in the industry.

CBJ is the only beverage job board that I know of that utilizes Facebook advertising to find candidates for the employer's posted jobs. It's resulted in a different candidate pool, which has delighted employers that use us.

CBJ appeals to all craft beverage, not just beer or wine. Competitors, Brewbound is strictly beer, and BevForce is mostly big business beverage (coors, soda, bacardi, etc). winejobs is just for wine (and mostly just California).

I have built community around our content, and job seekers really appreciate our help in finding them work.

Which ad networks does the website utilize?

AdSense

Are all ad networks transferable to the new owner?

Yes

Does your website utilize direct advertising?

No

How many registered users does the business have?

285 employers

How many total users do you have?

1,800 on site; not including email list of 5300+

Please provide a brief overview of each related site that you own below

craftbeveragemedia.com When I started CBJ it was primarily as a way to bring exposure to my marketing agency. I have since evolved my business and I do not operate under Craft Beverage Media. The new CBJ owner can do what they please w/ CBM.

Are you willing to sign a 3-year non-compete contract in the industry that the website operates in?

Yes, I am.

Will you provide 1-3 months of post-sale support & training, in order to ensure that the buyer is able to fully take over the business and its operations?

Yes

What are the primary growth opportunities for the business going forward?

I think there is a huge opportunity to improve SEO, which has been beyond my skillset. Traffic alone will increase revenue dramatically.

I think with minimal sales outreach to the industry, paid listings would increase (I have done no sales outreach).

There's a huge opportunity to monetize the email list and offer services to job seekers.

There is a wealth of partnership opportunities.

Are there any geographical limitations to the potential buyer of the business?

@gigmonk Not much - less than $1000. The price was $.99 on Amazon for most of last year. I recently increased the price to $9.97 and am coming out with a print and audio option in the next month or so.

** SELLER NOTE ** In the "At a Glance" section at the top of the listing, it says LeadPages. This is a WordPress site that has a LeadPages plugin.
According to Flippa, that was a glitch/error with no way to fix/update. Just an FYI.

** SELLER NOTE re INDEED ** I just was alerted to a change with the Indeed Affiliate program and API integration. As of April 1, 2017 (today) they are no longer working with affiliates like the CBJ site. I'm pasting their email notice below. This will affect the Indeed revenue that has been generated the last few months, and would be good motivation for a new owner to integrate with Zip Recruiter who is eager to establish an affiliate relationship with this site. I will pass on contact info for Zip Recruiter to the buyer.

Email from Indeed:

Dear publisher,

We wanted to inform you that Indeed has recently updated its terms of service relating to its publisher program. Effective March 3rd, for Publishers new to Indeed, Indeed will no longer offer the following affiliate products: 1) job search boxes, and 2) text links, both of which allow publishers to refer traffic directly to Indeed. As of April 1st we will no longer compensate Publishers currently using the aforementioned publisher products as well as those displaying Indeed organic jobs via the API or Jobroll. Indeed will continue to work with publishers who have separately been approved for sponsored jobs using our job search api.

Please visit Indeed.com/publisher for further information relating to our terms of service. Please do not reply to this email and submit your inquiry through our contact form.

What feed are you using right now to populate all the jobs on the site?

Also, it seems that the Apply Yourself ecourse would be highly valuable to this site and a key component, so I'm confused as why it's not included with the sale and would need to be purchased separately?

@elitweb Hi - The feed is currently Indeed, but as of yesterday (see comment above) Indeed ceased its affiliate program so I would suggest switching that to Zip Recruiter or something similar instead. I was told by the ZR rep, who reached out to me to work with them last month or so, that they have a plugin to make this integration.

As for the course, sorry for the confusion. The "Apply & Get Noticed" free email course (red CTA button at the top of the homepage) IS part of the sale. That course generates significant opt-ins.

I wrote a book called "Apply Yourself" which is not. That book is available on Amazon and I would be happy to work out an affiliate arrangement with the new owner on Clickbank or Gummroad if you wanted to keep the book on the site.

2) We would like to know your reserve price and your BIN price if you have anything in mind.

>> At this point, I am only disclosing the reserve price to those who place a bid in good faith and then who ask to know. That said, the price is in the ball-park of the reserve. I am not releasing a BIN price at this time.

3) Will you be transferring your Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts to us after the sale? Will you also be transferring your mailing list?

>> Yes - everything is there and ready for the new buyer to scoop up.

4) Is it possible to move your email list from ConvertList? You seem to be paying a lot of money their, but I'm not sure what value it is adding.

>> You certainly don't have to take over Convertkit, and you can import contacts into the ESP of your choosing. That said, everything is currently linked to Convertkit. I would at least be prepared to pay for 1 month while you migrate everything over.

5) Do you have to do anything to market yourself to employers? Or have you got all paid job listings organically?

>> As I disclosed, I have done ZERO outreach to employers. There is nothing but improvement to be made in this area to see an increase in sales.

6) How does the Indeed Backfill monetization work? Are you paid for every lead that you send them? Are there any other networks or aggregators that we can partner and work with?

>> Please read the comments above that I posted after the listing went live. Indeed is no longer a viable source of revenue.

7) Are those $50 and $60 earnings from AdSense coming from the two ad zones that are currently placed on your site? Or did you have more ads placed?

>> There are several placements for the ads - on the homepage, on the jobs portal, and on the blog.

8) You mentioned about working together with Zip Recruiter, can you tell what type of partnership was that? What would I have to do in order to proceed with such a partnership?

>> I am not working w/ Zip Recruiter. They are interested. All the buyer would have to do is reach out to them (I will give you my contact) and you can take it from there.

9) With regards to the 'Apply Yourself' ebook, can you tell me when it was launched, how many sales are you receiving monthly and how much would you charge to buy the ebook rights?

>> I will not sell the rights. We can work out an affiliate deal if you would like. Since the book has been for sale for mostly $.99 via Amazon, revenue hasn't been much since launched in 2016.

@Cdylan Yes those are included. I just changed them to $5 each as an experiment as I have used them primarily for lead gen up to this point. In the last few weeks since changing pricing on Gummroad, sold a handful.

@playgecko ahh - I see where that is confusing. The 1800 on site are the registered job seekers who have signed up have an account on the site. I do not include those in the email list unless they specifically opt in to the email list. I'm sure there is some overlap - not sure how much.